


the prices we pay

by dreamsleep



Category: Secret Circle (TV), Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Pre-Relationship, TSC integrated into TVD!verse, post season 1 TSC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 10:18:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsleep/pseuds/dreamsleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“It's your choice whether or not to trust me,” he had said, as he had held out his hand to her.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the prices we pay

**o.**

Here are some facts.

Happiness is finite; sooner or later it ends.

Her life is a brief flicker in his everlasting shadow.

In time, there may be others who are like _her_ , echoes of the wonder that _was_ her, but they will never _be_ her.

He has ghosts, skeletons that linger in his infinite closet, just as she has ghosts that she clings to for the sake of remembering.

His hands are soaked deep with blood. Thousands, maybe millions of lives line his ledger, condemning him to an end he knows full well he deserves, should the time ever come when someone is capable of delivering the final blow. But her hands are dirty too, and as she kisses his palms, he knows this isn't about absolution. This is about the people they wish they were, the people they are, and the people they might be again.

 

 

**i.**

He extends his hand out, and she takes it without thinking. And that's when the world goes to shit.

She doesn't feel the shake, because the room has suddenly gotten cold. She cannot hear voices; sounds are there, but she hears them muted, unintelligible sounds. Her breath freezes in her lungs, and through her eyes are forward, she cannot see.

He feels like Death, and even as she blinks, comes back to the present and tries to pick up where she left off, she sees a flicker in his eyes and tries not to shrink back. For a brief moment, she glimpses a predator in his eyes, and she feels the stirring of something in her gut.

But after years of dealing with witch hunters, demons and other nameless creatures, she knows what fear feels like. And for all of the fear that she feels, there is also calm. This is not the worst situation she has found herself in.

His lips quirk up, amused, and hers tighten, barely.

They drop hands at the same time.

 

 

**ii.**

“It's your choice whether or not to trust me,” he had said, as he had held out his hand to her. And her reasoning for taking his hand is this:

There are rules that she will abide by, no matter what. For starters, she has no right to tell people what to do with their lives. If someone asks for her opinion, she will give it honestly, because she isn't here to tell people what they _want_ to hear, but to tell people what they _need_ to. Her friends and family will always come first, even if she has to burn the world to make sure they live. Everything else is flexible, and everything else can be changed. But not these.

She doesn't know him. Part of her doesn't want to, because she knows what happens when she gets too close to people. How many times has Jake told her that she sees what she wants to see? She can't afford to be blind here, so she keeps herself far enough away to see clearly. Who knows? It may save her life in the long run.

But she does know this. She is in his debt now; he's saved her life. And one day, assuming that she's still alive, he will come to collect. It is the way of the world she knows; there are those that would take, and those who would give. She can only give, which means that he will take, just like all the others. She swallows the bitterness that enters her mouth at the thought. Take take take. That is all her life has been. People taking and never giving. She has no hope for this being different.

She can read between the lines. Should she fail to comply, he will kill her. Should she comply, she will live. But if he asks her to do something that violates one of her rules, she's dead anyways.

If this is the price she pays for cheating death, some broken part of her is laughing on the inside. She pushes the nausea away and holds her ground; this is no different from the rest of her life after all.

 

 

**iii.**

He finds her at her favorite coffee shop during her lunch break and she knows that the time to begin repayment is starting, whether she wants it to or not. She shouldn't be surprised that he knows her coffee order by now, but she is uneasy. It's hard not to be. Of one thing, she is certain.

He will speak, she will listen, and she will make a decision.

 

 

**iv.**

She watches him. It's hard not to, the way he can command the attention of a room without saying a word. She tries to figure out what it is about him, that just draws the eye or distracts it away. One moment he can charm even the grumpiest sourpuss, the next he can clear it with enough chill to remind her of Washington winters. He can be as still as stone, and then faster than a blink of an eye.

She wants to know how he guards himself so well, can deceive so many people at once. But part of her knows the answer already, because she has to do it every day. He deceives, she deceives and when they look at each other, nothing remains except for unrevealed truths

Across the room, his eyes meet hers and she senses she is one step closer to understanding him than before.

 

 

**v.**

Her thoughts are a million miles away as she turns, sliding her arms into the arm holes. As if she doesn't have enough to deal with already. Sometimes she wonders how she graduated on time when all her time seems to be focused on preventing exposure and making sure no one does anything stupid that might get them killed.

She dimly notes the feeling of his hands on her shoulders, making sure the coat is in place, brushing away the wrinkles, tugging to make sure everything looks the way it should. Her hands are checking her pockets, tugging her hair from underneath the collar when she catches a glimpse of his face in the mirror.

His thoughts are a thousand miles away too, and here, when there is no one else to watch them, she can see a bit more clearly. He's a thousand years old, she thinks, with the weight of more than that on his shoulders. Her own burden is heavy enough, she knows, but she can't imagine carrying more than her share. And he does, she realizes. He does because he loves his family more than life itself.

In his eyes, she has seen the look of a man who has burned the world to keep them alive, and he will do so again without a second thought. It isn't so difficult to say that she wouldn't do the same. The names on her list are a bit longer than his, but the end result would be the same.

_I know_ , she wants to tell him. _I know how that feels._ But she doesn't say anything.

Instead, she brushes her hand over his upper arm, feels the fabric of his suit sink into her palm before she pulls away without looking back.

 

 

**vi.**

He begins to see her more often. Sometimes he'll meet up with her after class. Sometimes he'll show up when she desperately needs a break from writing her dissertation. Most of the time, they talk about ordinary things, like Russian literature or who would win in a fight: astronauts or cavemen. Sometimes they'll talk about other things, like the strange things happening that are somehow all connected. He tells her what she needs to know, and she works with that.

People begin to joke that they're dating. She tries not to let it bother her. People, when bored, will try and satisfy their curiosity in any way they can, like through making up things that aren't true. (Thank you, BBC's _Sherlock_.) She knows it isn't true.

But it doesn't mean there isn't a bit of truth to the statement.

She's attracted to him. There, she's thought it (because she won't ever say it aloud, no way). He's different from anyone she's ever met. She's not sixteen anymore; boys with leather jackets have given way to well dressed, clean men. There's something tantalizing about a man concealed within layers of cloth; something exciting about finding what it all means as you remove one piece after another, until there's nothing left. After nearly a thousand years of living, of being shaped by the world and the times, how different would he be? Smooth, chiseled muscle, or maybe something else, something rougher...

That's as far as she gets on most days, because she knows that physical attraction is not enough to form a relationship. At least, one that she wants. She's been there enough times to know that physical attraction doesn't always equal emotional stability, and she knows now how much she needs that.

She can't love by halves. It may be better to love with everything she can rather than with nothing at all, because she knows regret, she knows loss and she knows the deeper depths of sorrow. By giving everything she has, everything she can, she can get rid of that, and as long as there is happiness somewhere, she will be happy too, because happiness is the most she can ask for and it will be enough.

But she won't ask Elijah for that happiness. That is one step too far.

 

 

**vii.**

She promised herself that she would only stay at this full formal attire black tie ball thing for an hour, maybe two. But Jake, who made her swear that she would dance with him to make him look good, is no where to be seen (most likely with Rebekah somewhere) and she's tired of smiling to appease other people, especially strangers. When her adviser asks her to do it, it's different, because it's for getting money and she is more or less good at that for about an hour.

But she's not with people she knows here, which might as well be the same as being alone. So at the sixth lull in conversation, she slips away and tries to head toward the door toward her car.

His voice calling out her name stops her, roots her in place despite the fact that she would like nothing more than to just keep moving. And when he looms into view, she tries very hard not to think about how well he wears his tuxedo. (She should be beyond this, really. She isn't sixteen anymore. She hasn't swooned over an accent since Grant.)

He asks her to dance, and even though every part of her wants to say 'no', she can't. She can't because he's looking at her like he's being honest. He wants her to dance with him. There isn't any of the usual serious business look on his face. There's an expectation there, but also a sense of vulnerability. She could say no, and he would probably respect that. But there's a part of him that is more open than usual. She's gotten better at reading his face. For all of his attempts to hide what he thinks, what he plans, there are cues, if you look close enough.

Or maybe she's just been around him long enough to see them.

By the time they reach the dance floor, her arm safely nestled in his, by the time his hand touches her waist, she realizes she really doesn't want to disappoint him. And she knows full well what usually follows. That dreaded, four letter word that she ruins every time it enters her vocabulary.

_Shit._

 

 

**viii.**

Her knees give out as the last syllables of the spell leave her throat. Her head is woozy, and she isn't sure if there are in fact, two feet attached to her legs or four. She doesn't really want to think, actually. Sleep sounds very good right now.

_Someone_ catches her, and _someone_ lifts her gently, like she weighs nothing at all.

She's in debt again and she isn't sure she minds.

 

 

**ix.**

When Melissa is barely born, maybe a year or two old, her mother dies in a fire. Her mother, Diana's mother, Jake's parents, Faye's father, Adam's mother, all of them die. And as they cry for help, turn to the one man who can save them, John Blackwell looks into their eyes and then turns away, leaving them there to die.

A generation later, as a house burns down, Melissa stares at Elijah's corpse. John Blackwell went left. Melissa goes right.

Her hands are sweaty as they tug on the dagger, but she has magic on her side. The hilt may be made of white oak ash, but that is neither iron nor white ash. With a tug and a pull, the dagger slips out of her hands, and out of him.

She can't breathe at this point, because the flames are literally entering whatever basement-dungeon-complex this is, but if this is how she dies, she's okay with that.

Because she didn't let him burn, and her debt is thus repaid.

 

 

**x.**

She wakes up in the cold, a singed and smoky jacket covering her, the faint aftertaste of copper in her mouth, and the flames of a burning house a bright red in the corner of her eye.

A hand gently touches her forehead before a familiar voice says “Sleep”. So she does.


End file.
